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GCM

The loss of the two Governors' races, NJ and Virginia is a really major blow to Obama. Obama had carried both states a year ago but could not get his picks elected today. I would expect a major Dem loss in the elections next year when the entire congress and 1/3rd of the Senate are up for election.

James Carville, the most vehement Democrat operative in the country was on TV tonight and said he would not be surprised to have see the Dems lose control of both houses next year. It appears that the public are rapidly losing faith in Obama. Part of the problem may be that the news media worshipful buildup of Obama as the hope of the world. miracle man, chosen one etc was so great that no one could live up to expectations and dissapointment followed.

GCM

The loss of the two Governors' races, NJ and Virginia is a really major blow to Obama. Obama had carried both states a year ago but could not get his picks elected today. I would expect a major Dem loss in the elections next year when the entire congress and 1/3rd of the Senate are up for election.

James Carville, the most vehement Democrat operative in the country was on TV tonight and said he would not be surprised to have see the Dems lose control of both houses next year. It appears that the public are rapidly losing faith in Obama. Part of the problem may be that the news media worshipful buildup of Obama as the hope of the world. miracle man, chosen one etc was so great that no one could live up to expectations and dissapointment followed.

The Democratic candidates are Obama's picks? Do you honestly believe that? Do I need to explain things like the difference between Federal and state politics, incumbency, and the primary process to you? No, I don't think so, you're smarter than that really.

Besides, they're state races. Corzine was as popular as leprosy because of his links to Goldman Sachs and 3 years of screwing things up in NJ and Creigh Deeds is just a horrible campaigner. There's also the considerable factor that in the exit polling, Obama's approval numbers are comfortably in the 50s and 60s among people who turned out.

However, I think your referendum on Obama hypothesis and faith in the conservative message really falls apart when you look at the one federal election that's being covered tonight- the NY 23rd, where it's looking like a Democrat is going to be their elected representative for the first time in 150 years because the Taliban ran a moderate Republican out of the race. I've been saying from when the Teabaggers first emerged that all they'd do is create a one-party democracy. It's not often I find myself in agreement with Newt Gingrich and Thomas Friedman, but in this case I think events have demonstrated that we have a point.

P.S. Ctauch, any chance you could change the title to avoid using racial slurs? We wouldn't want anyone to think you're a mouth-breathing, inbred, swamp-dwelling, bigot now, would we?

LE

Corzine really was a corrupt prick.
He lent his girlfriend a large amount of cash

She just also happened to be the lawyer for a Union which represents NJ State Workers which wonder of wonders suddenly endorsed him.

He was caught paying off Black Ministers to endorse him as well.

He was damn near killed in a auto crash that was his fault. He refuses to wear seat belts and always ordered the driver to speed, in this case 70 MPH in a 35 Zone. Even after this, on his way home from the Hospital again had his convoy do twice the speed limit.

But it's New Jersey, its expected to be mobbed up and corrupt, but even Corzine was too much

His first nominee for Attorney General turned out to be wanted for numerous Moving Violations and was found to have muscled a Local Police department which pulled her boytoy over, she was gone after 7 months and an ethics investigation.

As demonstrated by countries like Cuba, North Korea and the late, great Soviet Union, the state is much better at running large organisations than private enterprise is. It therefore makes sense to reform healthcare in the United States.

In this way, world class institutions like Johns Hopkins, the Mayo Clinic and Harvard Medical School could be run by civil servants instead of world class doctors. The type of people who brought you MREs, military aircraft toilet seats that cost $600 and Wall Street oversight could be holding your life in their hands after your next heart attack.

As any leftie worth his lentils will tell you, Britain's state controlled NHS is the envy of the world and its benefits are too numerous to list here, but let me mention 2.

Firstly, nobody in the UK is refused treatment because they are without medical insurance - not even the legions of women who fly in to London from North Africa to have their babies free of charge in NHS hospitals of a standard that their home countries can only dream of.

Not so the poor dumpster dwellers in your country who are unable to get their blackheads squeezed by board certified dermatologists due to fat cat Wall Street capitalist types who, err, oppress the downtrodden masses, err, comrade, err viva la revolucion.

Secondly, the treatment you receive on the NHS has no equal anywhere else in the world! For too long, hospitalised Americans have been deprived of the pleasure of finding rat turds in their dinner because government run hospitals are immune from hygiene laws.

You are strangers to the very special sense of outrage that stays with you for life when the paediatric oncologist tells you that your six year old daughter's terminal leukaemia could be cured but that the drugs cost more than the hospital is willing to spend. Meanwhile the hospital spends Â£50,000 on statues of dancing lesbians in order to 'celebrate diversity'.

Oh - and don't even think about the Human Rights Act. Dying NHS patients are not covered by the 'right to life' provisions but Somalian terrorists are.

With only a couple of years of hard work, a reformed US healthcare system could probably reduce cancer survival rates down to the European average. A few more years and you might get the rates down to British levels.

LE

Letâs see what the teabagger Taliban do in the morning after the 1 week notice to assemble in DC and knock on their representative's doors and say NO to Health Care Reform << whatever the **** that is.

GCM

The loss of the two Governors' races, NJ and Virginia is a really major blow to Obama. Obama had carried both states a year ago but could not get his picks elected today. I would expect a major Dem loss in the elections next year when the entire congress and 1/3rd of the Senate are up for election.

James Carville, the most vehement Democrat operative in the country was on TV tonight and said he would not be surprised to have see the Dems lose control of both houses next year. It appears that the public are rapidly losing faith in Obama. Part of the problem may be that the news media worshipful buildup of Obama as the hope of the world. miracle man, chosen one etc was so great that no one could live up to expectations and dissapointment followed.

The Democratic candidates are Obama's picks? Do you honestly believe that? Do I need to explain things like the difference between Federal and state politics, incumbency, and the primary process to you? No, I don't think so, you're smarter than that really.

Besides, they're state races. Corzine was as popular as leprosy because of his links to Goldman Sachs and 3 years of screwing things up in NJ and Creigh Deeds is just a horrible campaigner. There's also the considerable factor that in the exit polling, Obama's approval numbers are comfortably in the 50s and 60s among people who turned out.

However, I think your referendum on Obama hypothesis and faith in the conservative message really falls apart when you look at the one federal election that's being covered tonight- the NY 23rd, where it's looking like a Democrat is going to be their elected representative for the first time in 150 years because the Taliban ran a moderate Republican out of the race. I've been saying from when the Teabaggers first emerged that all they'd do is create a one-party democracy. It's not often I find myself in agreement with Newt Gingrich and Thomas Friedman, but in this case I think events have demonstrated that we have a point.

P.S. Ctauch, any chance you could change the title to avoid using racial slurs? We wouldn't want anyone to think you're a mouth-breathing, inbred, swamp-dwelling, bigot now, would we?

Sorry for confusing with the term "his picks" I was tired when posting and was using a sort of shorthand for saying the candidates that he picked for major support. It does not appear that his support helped in any way. I should note that unlike ctauch I do not begrudge one penny spent for the security of the president. I don't like him but strongly support the protection of all presidents (And especially this one as the VP is Joe Biden who could lose a battle of wits with a cocker spaniel). Polls indicate that the Obama Vote, i.e. young voters and black voters did not come out in any significant way in NJ or Virginia.

A couple of weeks ago, Oct 23 IIRC. Obama came to Cambridge, MA for an address, meetings etc at the Mass. Institute of Technology. After he left Cambridge (and I could go off duty and relax). he travelled to Boston for a fundraiser for Governor Deval Patrick (very very liberal, but somehow still a very decent and intelligent man). I was talking with colleagues who were at work there in Boston. They said the seating had been spread out to make it look like more and that it appeared that half the seats were empty. This indicates that Obama's presence did not do much to help the Patrick people sell seats and also that a good number of people who paid for seats did not make the effort to show up.

If President Obama, a Democrat in a very Democratic state, who carried the state by something like 57% to 34% in 2008, cannot fill seats for a Democratic Governor in that state it may well indicate that the bloom is now off the rose.

The New York congressional seat was clearly due to Republican infighting, not to an endorsement of the Dem by Obama.

As demonstrated by countries like Cuba, North Korea and the late, great Soviet Union, the state is much better at running large organisations than private enterprise is. It therefore makes sense to reform healthcare in the United States.

In this way, world class institutions like Johns Hopkins, the Mayo Clinic and Harvard Medical School could be run by civil servants instead of world class doctors. The type of people who brought you MREs, military aircraft toilet seats that cost $600 and Wall Street oversight could be holding your life in their hands after your next heart attack.

As any leftie worth his lentils will tell you, Britain's state controlled NHS is the envy of the world and its benefits are too numerous to list here, but let me mention 2.

Firstly, nobody in the UK is refused treatment because they are without medical insurance - not even the legions of women who fly in to London from North Africa to have their babies free of charge in NHS hospitals of a standard that their home countries can only dream of.

Not so the poor dumpster dwellers in your country who are unable to get their blackheads squeezed by board certified dermatologists due to fat cat Wall Street capitalist types who, err, oppress the downtrodden masses, err, comrade, err viva la revolucion.

Secondly, the treatment you receive on the NHS has no equal anywhere else in the world! For too long, hospitalised Americans have been deprived of the pleasure of finding rat turds in their dinner because government run hospitals are immune from hygiene laws.

You are strangers to the very special sense of outrage that stays with you for life when the paediatric oncologist tells you that your six year old daughter's terminal leukaemia could be cured but that the drugs cost more than the hospital is willing to spend. Meanwhile the hospital spends Â£50,000 on statues of dancing lesbians in order to 'celebrate diversity'.

Oh - and don't even think about the Human Rights Act. Dying NHS patients are not covered by the 'right to life' provisions but Somalian terrorists are.

With only a couple of years of hard work, a reformed US healthcare system could probably reduce cancer survival rates down to the European average. A few more years and you might get the rates down to British levels.

GCM

Sorry for confusing with the term "his picks" I was tired when posting and was using a sort of shorthand for saying the candidates that he picked for major support. It does not appear that his support helped in any way. I should note that unlike ctauch I do not begrudge one penny spent for the security of the president. I don't like him but strongly support the protection of all presidents (And especially this one as the VP is Joe Biden who could lose a battle of wits with a cocker spaniel). Polls indicate that the Obama Vote, i.e. young voters and black voters did not come out in any significant way in NJ or Virginia.

Quite right, Obama's supporters didn't show up, but I think that says more about the Democratic Party than the man himself. As LBJ once said, you can't polish a turd.

A couple of weeks ago, Oct 23 IIRC. Obama came to Cambridge, MA for an address, meetings etc at the Mass. Institute of Technology. After he left Cambridge (and I could go off duty and relax). he travelled to Boston for a fundraiser for Governor Deval Patrick (very very liberal, but somehow still a very decent and intelligent man). I was talking with colleagues who were at work there in Boston. They said the seating had been spread out to make it look like more and that it appeared that half the seats were empty. This indicates that Obama's presence did not do much to help the Patrick people sell seats and also that a good number of people who paid for seats did not make the effort to show up.

If President Obama, a Democrat in a very Democratic state, who carried the state by something like 57% to 34% in 2008, cannot fill seats for a Democratic Governor in that state it may well indicate that the bloom is now off the rose.

Well, I hadn't heard about specifics here, but a quick bit of research shows that it was a fund-raiser held in a non-election year in the middle of a Friday afternoon, the day before the latest installment of "The Holy War" . I'm guessing that anyone willing to pay $200 for rubber chicken was probably at work.

The New York congressional seat was clearly due to Republican infighting, not to an endorsement of the Dem by Obama.

I know- that's exactly the point I was making and exactly what Ctauch missed. It's not that a no-name (who I admit looks, moves and talks like a sedated child molester) came within 4-5 points of winning. It's that because the Taliban and the Republicans were busy playing dueling handbags. In the process, a district that hasn't elected a Democrat in 150 years did just that.

Now they're lining up over people like Charlie Crist because he has failed some sort of purity test in the course of actually running a state, as opposed to throwing temper-tantrums on the sidelines. They don't even need to run 3rd party candidates: an expensive primary can scupper any chance of success in the main event because the nominee will have been dragged through the mud by his own team and his war chest will be empty. This is precisely the sort of thing that Arlen Spector was looking at- and hoping to avoid- when he jumped ship. (Too bad he didn't count on someone like Joe Sestak calling bullshit.)

There is absolutely nothing that the DNC would like to see more than the Taliban, led by Armey, Norquist and Beck, divide the political right and tear the GOP apart. It'll save the Democratic a ton of time, effort and cash.

LE

The whole to do, and the odd circumstances, in NY 23 were a message from conservatives that they don't want a Republican party full of RINOs to try to deflect criticism from MSNBC, ABC, CNN etc (who will hate them anyway no matter what they do) in exactly the same way as British Conservatives don't want the Tory party to just become Blue Labour to mitigate criticism from the BBC (who equally hate them anyway.)

If it hadn't been for the 5% who voted for someone who wasn't standing anyway, it would have gone right down to the line and probably recounts. And that would have been exceedingly interesting.

Every party needs a period in opposition every now and again to find its roots and values back after becoming corrupt in power (as they ALL do), but if the RNC/Tories keep trying to cosy up to the opposition and ape them at every opportunity, it is no good for anyone.

As for the "health-care reform" thing, I postulated last night that government health care is just something that the DNC have wanted to do for so long that they have forgotten fundamentally why they want to do it. My wife (formerly a registered Democrat) is rather less charitable towards her old party, and believes it is a power grab and excuse to funnel money towards their pet voters. Frankly, there's no point in anyone actually discussing the various bills at the moment, since nobody knows what's in them...

A sensible approach would have been to sort Medicare and Medicaid out first, but that would have been too obvious...

Do you not get that there are practical realities that need to be factored into political decision-making and that ideology is a set of guiding principles and idealized models that do get affected by real-world circumstances? Besides, he's the governor of everyone in Florida, not just the people who agree with him. You think he's going to be able to accomplished anything without Miami-Dade? Of course he had to compromise.

ADC

Do you not get that there are practical realities that need to be factored into political decision-making and that ideology is a set of guiding principles and idealized models that do get affected by real-world circumstances? Besides, he's the governor of everyone in Florida, not just the people who agree with him. You think he's going to be able to accomplished anything without Miami-Dade? Of course he had to compromise.

Oh I get it, but see the fact of the matter is Charlie has no "guiding" principles. He is an appeaser. He's not willing to stand by a hard decision, whether it is right or wrong. Instead he defers to the polls and then says, well you wanted me to do it.

He's a coward, a spineless weasle and all around shit. He stands for everything and for absolutely nothing.

ctauch: Sorry if I put words in your mouth and I am not trying to replace your wife in any way.

At one point you said " Why if they were such âlost causesâ did he spend taxpayer money to visit those States, and support the losers?" . There is a large cost to all presidential travel but a very large part of the cost involves security people and vehicles, communications people and the like.

As you know I am no fan of The Chosen One but I want him safe. The thought of Joe Biden as POTUS is chilling.

Living in the DC suburbs of Virginia (and having voted for the Republican candidates), the one thing that really struck me was the lack of enthusiasm for Deeds. My next door neighbors held a big fund raising party last year for Obama, with the local congressman showing up. This year, nothing, not even a bumper sticker. The Republicans were energized.

Crabtastic, what is your take on the California governor and senate races?